Happy Flag Day!

It’s June 14th, people. Start worshipping thy proudly displayed fabric.

According to Wikipedia, 26 nations around the world have a Flag Day to celebrate, and the United States is part of that sacred brotherhood. No two Flag Days fall on the same date, and probably for good reason. Have you ever seen two flags raised on the same pole simultaneously? Of course you haven’t. Flagpoles aren’t equipped to handle such a heavy workload, and besides, who decides which flag shall fly higher? Seems like a bureaucratic nightmare to me.

I’d like to point out that those nations that celebrate flag day really have little rhyme nor reason to them. It’s not like the 26 best flags in the world are truly represented here. Bhutan is completely sleeping on a prime newsmaking opportunity. Some nations, like Sri Lanka, Curacao, the Faroe Islands, and Aruba celebrate probably on account of them having very little to do the rest of the year. Other nations, like Ukraine and Lithuania, recently celebrated independence from Soviet Russia, and with a clean holiday slate, just started binging on new holiday creation. But hey, my former Russian friends, it’s gotta feel good to raise that flag with nationalistic pride.

After all, in Soviet Russia, flag waves you.

In the U.S., today commemorates the adoption of Old Glory. This happened in 1777, some 172 years prior to its enactment by an Act of Congress. For those 172 years, Americans wandered the streets aimlessly, wondering if there would ever come a day where we could drop everything and revel in the majesty of Betsy Ross’ best work. Sure, everyone knew that on Sundays you went to church to pay homage to the God in which we trust. But we lacked protocol when it came to hoist and huzzah-ing the flag. Whew. Glad Congress cleared that up.

(Note: remember that post a month back about my senioritis learn to golf project? This was Congress’ senioritis resolution. After all the declaring of war in the forties, they needed a cake assignment to regain momentum heading into the fifties.)

Now don’t read this incorrectly; in reality, I’m a flag enthusiast. The display of an organization’s colors, no matter how wretched, is an important part of one’s identity. Here are some things I’ve noticed over the years.

1 – Red, White, and Blue rules. Last week, the G8 nations, or “best nations,” met in Germany to tackle the leading problems our world currently faces – poverty, global warming, steroids in baseball, to name a few. 6 of these 8 nations use the American colors to fill out their flags – Canada, France, UK, Russia, US, and Japan all stay within our patriotic palette of hues. That leaves Italy (oh, so close!) and Germany (no wonder you hosted – out of guilt, yes?) in non-compliance. Since it’s clearly the design of individual symbols of autocracy that make a nation truly great, I say we boot them for their poor artistic vision. Come on in, Australia and Slovakia! Great to have you.

2 – When I was very young, I had this enormous map of the world adorning my wall. At the foot of the map was a selection of the world’s national flags. For some reason, I recall cutting out small rectangles of paper and attempting to draw my own set of the world’s banners. Why? I don’t know. Maybe baseball cards weren’t in season. Anyways, I came across my masterpiece years later. Apparently, the only color paper we had was green. And since white crayons are known to suck, my collection was slightly subpar. Well, except for Libya. Right the hell on.

3 – The official term for one who studies flags is a vexillographer. I find it hard to believe that something like flagology was already spoken for. Way to fancy the place up, dorks.